Marriage Counseling In Austin, TX

marriage counseling

Spouses commonly enlist the assistance of a counselor when their marriage isn’t functioning well and is entrenched in maladaptive patterns. There are many possible reasons for this, including arrogance, jealousy, anger, poor communication or problem-solving, ill health, and third parties. Marriage counseling works with the couple-system and allows them to have a more objective view of their relationship, modify dysfunctional behavior, decrease emotional avoidance, improve communication, and promote their strengths.

Additionally, as intimacy deepens, each partner learns to take equal responsibility of future problems as they arise, becomes aware of their own contribution to the couple-system, and makes some fundamental changes in their beliefs, behaviors, and feelings. Marriages truly benefit when these gains are maintained over the long-term.

How Marriage Counseling Can Help Strengthen Your Relationship

Emotion focused counseling can benefit healthy marriages as well as those in crisis, but most couples wait an average of six years from the first sign of problems to get help. Find out if marriage counseling is right for your relationship.

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Common Myths About Marriage Counseling

“It’s too expensive.”

According to the American Association for Marriage and Family Therapy (AAMFT), marriage counseling costs 20% less than a psychologist’s fees, and 30% less than a psychiatrist’s fees. In fact, it is shown that 2/3 of marriage counselors are willing to lower their rates! (Under certain criteria, marriage counseling may be covered under most health insurance policies.)

“It’s just the last step before the inevitable divorce” or “We’re past the point of reconciliation.”

According to one study, just 3% of marriages divorced 4 years after completing insight-oriented marital therapy, and nearly one-third of marriages last after an affair has been admitted or discovered!

“It takes too long.”

The median length of family therapy is just 12 sessions, and 65% of cases are completed within 20 sessions. In fact, family therapy generally lasts 30% fewer sessions than individual therapy.

“It doesn’t make a difference.”

About one half of all highly-distressed marriages in a 2011 study showed persistent signs of improvement 5 years later.

Benefits And Stats About Marriage Counseling

752,370

couples enter family therapy each year

3.4%

of households have seen a marriage and family therapist

21.5%

reduction in health care use as a result of family therapy

Patient Feedback

98.1%

rated services good or excellent

97.1%

got the kind of help they desired

91.2%

were satisfied with the amount of help they received

93%

said they helped in dealing more effectively with problems

96.9%

would recommend their therapist to a friend

94.3%

would return to the same therapist

97.4%

were generally satisfied with the service they received

Phase 1: History Taking

Before beginning EMDR, your trauma therapist will get to know more about your experiences and symptoms. This step is for you to share about events in your past that may be affecting your current mindset.

Phase 2: Preparation

This stage is about ensuring your readiness for EMDR. Even though EMDR therapy for trauma is completely safe, it can be problematic for individuals who commonly experience dissociation. As a safeguard, your trauma therapist will work with you to create your own “calm place” to concentrate on if you feel distressed.

Phase 3: Assessment

It’s now time to choose a target to be reprocessed during your next few sessions. In doing so, you’ll need to identify a vivid image related to the memory, a negative cognition about yourself associated with it, and emotions and bodily sensations that accompany both. Your therapist will then have you challenge that negative cognition with a cognitive one. They will have you rate how true your positive cognition feels and how much distress the target memory causes you on a scale from 1-10.

Phase 4: Desensitization

This is where Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing comes into play. When you feel ready, your therapist will guide you to process your negative feelings and memories using bilateral eye movements to facilitate the brain’s healing process. This will help to ground you and take more directed focus on the thoughts, feelings, and images associated with your target. Every minute or so, your therapist will check in on what you’ve noticed and ask you to rate how much discomfort you’re now feeling. When you no longer report distress related to your targeted memory, you move onto the next step.

Phase 5: Installation

Next, your attention will be brought back to the positive cognition you identified earlier. Your trauma/PTSD therapist will recheck how true this belief now feels. The goal is to get this belief to feel like it’s 100 percent true.

Phase 6: Body Scan

You will now be asked to check your body for any areas of tension in your body caused by the target memory. Are your teeth clenched? Is your chest tight? Any uncomfortable physical sensations will be reprocessed using the same procedure as before until you can think of the target memory without feeling any tension.

Phase 7: Closure

At the end of every session, your trauma counselor will make sure that you are leaving feeling more relaxed than when you arrived. If you are feeling agitated, they will lead you through self-calming techniques until you regain your sense of control.

Phase 8: Reevaluation

At the beginning of each subsequent session, your therapist will ask you questions to ensure your positive beliefs have been maintained. This will also help them to identify any new problem areas that may need to be targeted.

EMDR therapy for trauma is considered a success once you are able to bring up memories of trauma without feeling the distress that brought you to therapy. Your trauma therapist will also provide you with the techniques and skills you need going forward to deal with upsetting feelings.

An Approach To Marriage Counseling That Works

Fusing Gottman’s Research-Based Counseling and Emotion-Focused Marriage Counseling

We follow the best practices of the two most successful, results driven methods in marriage therapy to improve patient outcomes.

Science-based, goal oriented therapy is used to help marriages to:

  • Increase respect, affection and closeness
  • Break through conflict and resolve conflict
  • Generate greater understanding between partners
  • Keep conflict discussions calm
  • Maintain lasting improvements in the marriage

Phase 1: History Taking

Before beginning EMDR, your trauma therapist will get to know more about your experiences and symptoms. This step is for you to share about events in your past that may be affecting your current mindset.

Phase 2: Preparation

This stage is about ensuring your readiness for EMDR. Even though EMDR therapy for trauma is completely safe, it can be problematic for individuals who commonly experience dissociation. As a safeguard, your trauma therapist will work with you to create your own “calm place” to concentrate on if you feel distressed.

Phase 3: Assessment

It’s now time to choose a target to be reprocessed during your next few sessions. In doing so, you’ll need to identify a vivid image related to the memory, a negative cognition about yourself associated with it, and emotions and bodily sensations that accompany both. Your therapist will then have you challenge that negative cognition with a cognitive one. They will have you rate how true your positive cognition feels and how much distress the target memory causes you on a scale from 1-10.

Phase 4: Desensitization

This is where Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing comes into play. When you feel ready, your therapist will guide you to process your negative feelings and memories using bilateral eye movements to facilitate the brain’s healing process. This will help to ground you and take more directed focus on the thoughts, feelings, and images associated with your target. Every minute or so, your therapist will check in on what you’ve noticed and ask you to rate how much discomfort you’re now feeling. When you no longer report distress related to your targeted memory, you move onto the next step.

Phase 5: Installation

Next, your attention will be brought back to the positive cognition you identified earlier. Your trauma/PTSD therapist will recheck how true this belief now feels. The goal is to get this belief to feel like it’s 100 percent true.

Phase 6: Body Scan

You will now be asked to check your body for any areas of tension in your body caused by the target memory. Are your teeth clenched? Is your chest tight? Any uncomfortable physical sensations will be reprocessed using the same procedure as before until you can think of the target memory without feeling any tension.

Phase 7: Closure

At the end of every session, your trauma counselor will make sure that you are leaving feeling more relaxed than when you arrived. If you are feeling agitated, they will lead you through self-calming techniques until you regain your sense of control.

Phase 8: Reevaluation

At the beginning of each subsequent session, your therapist will ask you questions to ensure your positive beliefs have been maintained. This will also help them to identify any new problem areas that may need to be targeted.

EMDR therapy for trauma is considered a success once you are able to bring up memories of trauma without feeling the distress that brought you to therapy. Your trauma therapist will also provide you with the techniques and skills you need going forward to deal with upsetting feelings.

How Can Marriage Counseling Help Your Relationship?

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